Government of Little Russia, which came under Russian domination in 1764, and whose present organization was established in 1802. It has a Jewish population of 111,417, the total population being 2,780,427 (census of 1897). See table at end of article.

Poltava:

Capital of the above-named government. It had a small Jewish community, almost entirely Ḥasidic, before Jews from Lithuania, Poland, and other parts of Russia began to arrive there in larger numbers after the great "Ilyinskaya" fair had been transferred to that city from Romny in 1852. A Sabbath- and Sunday-school for Jewish apprentices was established there in 1861 ("Ha-Karmel," Russian Supplement, 1861, Nos. 46-47). Aaron Zeitlin then held the position of "learned Jew" under the governor of Poltava.

The anti-Ḥasidim, or Mitnaggedim, soon increased in numbers, and erected a synagogue for themselves about 1870. In 1863 Aryeh Löb Seidener (b. 1838; d. in Poltava Feb. 24, 1886) became the government rabbi, and during the twenty-three years in which he held the position he was instrumental in establishing various educational and benevolent institutions and in infusing the modern spirit into the community. He was assisted in his efforts by the teachers Michael Zerikower, Eliezer Ḥayyim Rosenberg, Abraham Nathansohn, and other progressive men. In 1890 Aaron Gleizer, son-in-law of Lazar Zweifel, was chosen to succeed Seidener. Eliezer Akibah Rabinovich (b. Shilel, government of Kovno, May 13, 1862), whose project of holding a rabbinical conference in Grodno in 1903 aroused intense opposition, has been rabbi of Poltava since 1893. One of the assistant rabbis, Jacob Mordecai Bezpalov, founded a yeshibah there. Poltava has a Talmud Torah for boys (250 pupils), with a trade-school connected with it, and a corresponding institution for girls. It has a Jewish home for the aged (16 inmates in 1897), a Hebrew literary society, and several charitable and Zionist organizations. The most prominent among the Maskilim or progressive Hebrew scholars who have resided in Poltava was Ezekiel b. Joseph Mandelstamm (born in Zhagory, government of Kovno, in 1812; died in Poltava April 13, 1891), author of the Biblical onomasticon "Oẓar ha-Shemot" (Warsaw, 1889), with a "Sefer ha-Millu'im," or supplement, which was printed posthumously in 1894. He was the father of Dr. Max Mandelstamm of Kiev. Michel Gordon's well-known Yiddish song beginning "Ihr seit doch, Reb Yud, in Poltava gewen" is a humorous allusion to the moral pitfalls in the way of pious Jews of the older Polish communities who settled in the liberal-minded Poltava. The writer Alexander Süsskind Rabinovich, A. M. Boruchov (contributor to "Ha-Shiloaḥ"), and Benzion Mirkin (journalist) are residents of Poltava. Among the prominent Jews of Poltava in early times were the families of Zelenski, Portugalov, and Warshavski. The city has a total population of 53,060, of whom 7,600 are Jews.